The maid was slow about appearing, and Olive chatted on, by way of filling up the time. "I'm glad. It is two weeks or so, since I have seen her. She told me then that she hardly caught a glimpse of you, all day long. Indeed, she was almost as pathetic about it as Professor Opdyke. It really is too bad for the church to keep you quite so busy." "But, if it is my work?" Brenton interrupted banally, for, in his secret heart, he was painfully aware that it was not the church alone which kept him so preoccupied that his preoccupation had come to be an occupation on its own account. "Your work needn't be suicidal," Olive objected. "My father, even, says it is taking it out of you rather badly, and he insists that they must hurry about the curate. Seven hours a day is enough for any man, he says; and he declares that you are working twenty. In fact," Olive looked up at him to carry home her admonition; "he says that he has warned you more than once that you must slow down a little, or else stop." "At least, that would be restful." Brenton spoke more to himself than Olive. But she turned on him. "Reed hasn't found it so," she said. Brenton's face changed, clouded. "That is an extreme case, Miss Keltridge." Then, with an effort, he changed the subject and became frankly personal. "How is Opdyke getting on?" She shook her head. "He isn't getting on, unless you count as the _on_ a distinct gain in the beauty of holiness. No," she interrupted him with a sudden gesture; "I don't mean the kind of holiness you preach, on Sunday; but the kind we both of us admire, on Monday morning." "Is there a difference?" he queried, while his gray eyes searched her face. She met his eyes unflinchingly. "Isn't there? Preacher that you are, I defy you to deny it." And then the maid opened the door before them, and they passed in. Once in the hall, however, Olive changed her mind about going up to Reed's room. "I think I'll wait, Mr. Brenton," she said suddenly. "Really, I have nothing much ahead of me, to-day. I can come in later, just as well; and you are a novelty, in these latter days. Go on alone, and talk man-talk to Reed. It will do him any amount more good than dozens of my visitations. Just don't tell him I was here, and then he won't have any qualms about holding on to you till the last possible minute. I'll come in again." "But--" "No _but_ about it. I tell you he needs men. In fact, we all do, now and then, no matter how we try to veil the fact. If you want proof, ask any sane woman whether she would rather go out to luncheon or to dinner. Granted her sincerity isn't complicated with questionings about a frock, she will declare for dinner, every time. Go in, though. This is most irrelevant. Moreover, by way of living up to my own theory, I'm going to take the time when you are out of the way, to drop in on Mrs. Brenton. Good bye, and--be very good to Reed."